Steroids: MLB? Yes. NFL? Yes. Olympians? Of Course. But Not The Habs.

This story broke in the Canadian Press yesterday and is about a doctor who says he fed steroids to certain Montreal Canadiens and Montreal Alouette players beginning around 2001 or so. He said it stopped when the players were traded to western teams.

The teams, however, are saying they know absolutely nothing about this doctor, and of course are denying everything.

I almost decided to make a list of Montreal Canadiens who were moved to western teams in the past years since 2001, but then I said no. No one’s name should be smeared because some crooked doctor who’s now in hot water wants to justify his reputation by saying even the Habs and Alouettes did it, so he’s not so bad after all.

This is all slanderous bullshit. I hate to see this kind of negative publicity, but because this blog is all about the Habs, I feel you should see it if you haven’t already.

It seems like if it’s not one thing it’s another with the Montreal Canadiens.

MONTREAL — Professional sports teams in Montreal are denying any connection with Dr. Maurice Duquette, who has pleaded guilty to charges of doping athletes.

Duquette has been linked to former Canadian cycling champ Genevieve Jeanson who tested positive in July 2005 for the banned substance erythropoietin. She admitted in an interview last year that she had taken the performance-enhancer, better known as EPO, for several years before the test.

Jeanson also has said Duquette administered the EPO for the first time in 1998 when she was 16 years old and suffered from anemia.

The disciplinary committee of the group which represents Quebec’s doctors also said Wednesday it wasn’t comfortable with the sanctions being recommended against Duquette.

An inquiry by the College des Medecins du Quebec recommended the doctor not be allowed to practice for four months and that he not to be permitted to treat athletes in the future.

The doctors’ disciplinary committee described the recommended sanctions as “not being severe enough.”

During a disciplinary hearing this week, it was revealed that Duquette admitted in 2001 he acted as an adviser to professional hockey players to help them “maintain their retail value.”

But investigators say he told them the relationship ended when the players were transferred to teams in the West.

No names or other details of Duquette’s relationships with professional teams were released at the two-day hearing.

Donald Beauchamp, a spokesman for the Montreal Canadiens, says he checked inside the hockey organization and nobody knew anything about Duquette.

“We’ve never heard of anything of this nature … we found no information whatsoever,” he told The Canadian Press.

Louis-Philippe Dorais, an official with the Montreal Alouettes, says the team has never communicated with Duquette and its doctors don’t know him “either personally or professionally.”

“We’ve spoken with our medical staff, our managers with the Alouettes and nobody’s been in touch with Dr. Duquette and our organization has no relationship with him,” Dorais said in an interview.

When asked if any players had been in personal contact with Duquette, Dorais said that was beyond the team’s control.

Jacques Prevost, a lawyer involved in Duquette’s inquiry, says the sanctions were negotiated more than four-and-half-years ago after a long list of complaints were filed against the doctor in 2002.

But he said it was up to the disciplinary committee to decide on the final sanctions.

“The goal of any disciplinary action is not to punish the professional but to protect the public,” Prevost said. “It’s not an inquiry into the sports world, it’s an inquiry (into the conduct) of a doctor.”

The disciplinary committee has postponed its decision on sanctions until a later date.

Prevost said he expects further arguments to be presented at that time by all parties involved.

2 thoughts on “Steroids: MLB? Yes. NFL? Yes. Olympians? Of Course. But Not The Habs.”

Sorry & hate to mention it but was’nt Jose deamed ineligble to play for Team Canada for taking a banned substance for hair loss. When looking at him I just wish my hair loss was as severe !!We can dance around all we want but guy’s are consuming large contaties of sudafed etc. to get pumped & hope to have an extra stride on the guy chasing them.Think about Kordic & some of the other heavy weights,it killed Kordic & all he was doing was trying to do was stay in the big leagues.The cheats are every where & the cooks only have to change one componet or molacule it’s now not a banned substance.These folks are paid millions to produce or their gone, it’s a no brainer they are going to look for that little edge & hope they stay in the centre of their universe & the cooks are going to try & stay ahead of the testing !!
But it’s still Les Canadiens Toujours !!!!!!

Sigh, lost yet another entry. In any case, to sum up: 1) now they find some people are genetically able to process certain `enhancers’ more efficiently and faster than others – ahh, even the one who test negative are now suspect, eh?; 2) when will the witch hunt end? Wow, we’ve discovered some new facts/techniques in the arenas of genetic and stem cell research so lets test them out on our handy athletic guinea pigs – sorta like arms production/producers creating reasons for their products to be used, eh?; 3) the larger issue is that of the extent to which we want the gov’t or other institutions empowered to meddle in our personal lives – already, in my opinion, it’s way out of hand, but hey the self-annointed ideologues with their `visions’ and their deeper understanding of the issues and the potentional ramifications know what they’re doing, after all they do possess `superior’ insight into why we do what we do; 4)historically, ideologues and ideologies have always betrayed the very causes and oh-so-altruistic ends they so righteously espouse (if you disagree why you are guilty of whatever is necessary to justify assaulting you, guilty of everything if need be); 5)I have yet to meet a self-professed `visionary’ with sufficient imagination to conceive of his/her possible limitations re apprehending what they proclaim they know is best – invariably, I have found that these individuals are emotionally/ethically/morally stunted, that they lack the character to do anything but latch onto simplistic solutions in order to hide their pathetic insecurities from themselves not to mention the world. Same old same old, perhaps Yeats said it best: The best lack all conviction while/The worst are full of passionate intensity)

That said, hey, steroid-users are `cheaters’ in the sense that they are acquiring an unfair advantage over their competitors by breaking the rules if not always in the letter, always in the spirit in which they are intended. More to the point, as is becoming increasingly evident, they have cheated themselves of longer healthier lives for a short time of fleeting fame & glory. So what? Why not simply id the users and have separate entries in the record books for them …. it would be interesting to see how the two would match up over, say, 10 years – I doubt there would be really significant differences. Okay, the problem here is the finite nature of teams – users would have an edge for getting a job over non-users which is of real import. So why not have a quota a la American imports in Canadian football, so many users per team. As for individual sports, especially the Olympics,again,separate results with separate medals … not gonna cost nearly as much as the testing but then now the `hunters’ have carved a profitable niche out for themselves, of course, in the name of `virtue’ so they’re gonna fight that idea. If this kind of behavior is deemed to be so rogue, to have such potentially damaging effects on the social polity, then it should be `criminalized’ and known users should be sent to jail to be `rehabilitated’, eh? After all, who knows how many C.Benoits are out there …. hmm, how many of these users post a serious threat to society relative to other kinds of users … drunk drivers for example? Yeah yeah, I know, drunk quarterbacks don’t last long.

Look, if some idiots want to take `extreme’ risks with their bodies, sobeit. What? the kamikaze dood ripping down a mountain on a piece or two of laminated wood or plastic is any less crazy than a dood shooting up steroids? Again, to what extent should we be sanctioning the gov’t to dictate our choices in order to `protect ourselves from ourselves’. If we keep this up pretty soon ol’ Leviathan is gonna come crashing down on our heads.

p.s. DK: naw, c’mon, the Barclay bros, althou good players, were notorious tuff guys/line-crossers and Horton was no angel only the way the rules were applied back then permitted them to do exactly what Gill is doing to Holmstrom. Hey, cruising by, picking your spots, timing your appearances is, I think, skillful and an admirable way of playing but squatting like a cheap stogie in an ashtray ain’t. So, until the rules change, Gill and others will simply have to continue to take penalities only they should be sure to make the Holmstoms pay for every one … as I understand is the case now. Yeah, once again the `law of Unintended Consequences’ has kicked-in – to wit, in the name of cleaning up the game, another kind of borderline play is encouraged. Okay, not as bad as the `instigator rule’ but still the same animal.